


The Ties That Bind

by handyhunter



Category: X-Men (comicsverse)
Genre: Asian Character, Gen, sandwichverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-19
Updated: 2010-02-19
Packaged: 2017-10-07 09:27:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/63764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handyhunter/pseuds/handyhunter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hisako talks to Logan about Jean Grey. Spoilers for Uncanny X-Men #510.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ties That Bind

"Do you want boba?"

"Yes, thanks." Hisako handed a twenty dollar bill to the teenager behind the counter and collected her change. She'd briefly entertained the thought of getting Logan something that was pink or green, but decided to stick to her usual almond black milk tea. It might be boring, but there was a reason it was a best-seller.

It had been almost a week since the latest attack on the San Francisco not-so-safe-house, and things were not quite returning to normal, what with Hank busy fortifying the place and others busy helping and getting in the way-- well, actually, that probably _was_ normal for the X-Men. Still, it was nice to get out of the place once in a while. Logan was good at sneaking out, and if Scott knew, he only looked mildly disapproving and didn't say a word. To her at least; he probably talked with Logan.

Her order came up and she carried the tray back to the table Logan was sitting at, thumbing through a wrinkled Chinese newspaper. She waved the plate of dumplings under his nose and he looked up. "What?"

"You can read Chinese?" She sat down, looking at the printed characters upside-down. Even right-side up they'd be indecipherable to her.

"Not really." He folded up the newspaper and put it aside. Hisako handed Logan his drink and looked at him expectantly. He sniffed it and took a cautious sip...and then another less cautious one...and choked.

"What the hell?" he got out, after his coughing fit.

"You're supposed to chew the boba first," Hisako said helpfully, around a mouthful of dumpling. "I can't take you anywhere. Also, I can't believe you've never been to a bubble tea place."

"Not exactly my kind of crowd, kid."

Well, that was true enough. It was mostly college kids - and Asian college kids, at that - who hung out here. She liked this city -- aside from the humans and mutants who tried to hurt them, but those people were everywhere -- and didn't think she got to see nearly enough of it. She was one of the lucky ones, she knew -- she and Logan both -- who could, if they wanted to, choose to blend in with non-mutants easily, _and_ there were _a lot_ of Asians in this place, even if most of them were Chinese, that she didn't stand out that way either. She ate the last dumpling before Logan could.

"Well?"

"Not bad." Logan concentrated on his drink for another moment. "It's kinda chewy. Want more?" He pointed at the empty plate.

She nodded. "Since you're paying."

"I paid earlier too."

"I won that twenty from you, fair and square," she said, maybe a little too smugly. Oops. Wolverine was going to kick her ass next training session, and then he'd get to pick where they went next. He'd probably find a forest somewhere in the middle of the Bay Area, leave her there and call it a learning experience. He muttered something under his breath in Japanese that she chose not to hear. She was going to have to twitter or email her cousin later to learn more swear words. Logan had years and years and years to build up his vocabulary, and she could only call him a gorilla so many times before it got old.

When Logan came back with the food, Hisako still hadn't figured how she was going to ask him the question on everyone's mind -- except Ms. Frost, maybe, and if Ms. Frost knew, then Mr. Summers would know, and the Cuckoos, and who else was a telepath, again? -- but Megan was curious, and so was she, and possibly Laura was too, although she didn't seem to care that much.

Logan had a thing for Jean, she knew that much. Everyone did; it wasn't like he kept it a secret or anything. And he and Mr. Summers fought all the time about her, or used to, back at Xavier's; they seemed to get along better now, but if Jean... If Logan...

"What?" he said, and she blinked. "You're staring."

Hisako twirled around the tapioca at the bottom of her drink with her straw, not meeting Logan's eyes. "What are they going to do with Jean Grey's hair?" she said quietly.

Logan made an odd noise, like he was choking again. "You sure know how to drop a question, bub." At least when he called her that, it sounded more wry than threatening. "I don't know. I hate to guess." He could probably come up with worse things than she and Megan _and_ Laura combined. "They'd try to clone her again, maybe?" He sounded a little sad and terrified, which didn't exactly reassure her.

"Oh." Hisako poked at a cooling dumpling; neither of them were hungry now. "Were you two? I mean, did she..."

Logan was slumped in his chair. He cracked his knuckles under the table, but the popping noise still carried. If they weren't in a public place, Hisako thought she might have to punch him to cheer him up a bit.

She was about to retract her question when he said, "No, Jeannie never loved me. Her hair..." He sighed. "It was, honest-to-god, a training accident." He traced his knuckles with a finger. "I nicked her hair, and from the way she and Summers yelled, you'd have thought I'd taken off her head. She was wearing her hair kinda big at the time," Logan held out his hands about half a foot on either side of his own head, and Hisako had to stifle a smile, "so I never would have gotten _her_. I stuck it in a pouch on my belt because I meant to return it, get her to laugh or be mad at me again, but something happened, a fight, a mission, you know-" Hisako nodded like she knew "-and by the time I remembered...she'd died again." His voice had dropped. "And I couldn't get rid of it."

"I'm sorry, Logan."

"Yeah, well, what do you say we get out of here?" he said gruffly.

She and Logan walked through the crowded streets of San Francisco side by side, lost in their own thoughts. If Hisako were younger, or older, maybe, she might have reached out to hold his hand. Today, though, Logan had his hands in his jacket pockets and Hisako's arms were wrapped around herself, as if to ward off a chill.

_This is what it's like to be an X-Man,_ she thought. _People die. But what if sometimes they don't stay dead?_ She wondered if it was harder to lose someone you loved a second, or third, or fourth time; if every time you saw them, you were thinking they'd end up gone again, maybe for good that time. _Does the grieving get easier? Do you end up loving them a little less each time? Or more?_ She was suddenly fiercely, selfishly glad that Logan was indestructible. He would and possibly had survived almost anything. _Had Kitty Pryde felt that way about him too?_ She wondered if Kitty would one day return, as Jean had, even without the Phoenix factor; but then, Kitty wasn't actually dead, was she? She was just...lost? Logan wouldn't talk about her, and Hisako wasn't sure if that was good or bad, but as long as she didn't find him in that state he was in the day after -- she'd seen Logan half-dead before, but she didn't think she'd ever seen him so utterly defeated -- she wasn't going to question his coping methods.

Hisako had not been particularly close to either woman, but she mourned their loss and not without a little bit of fear that it might one day be her.


End file.
